John Williams says film music “usually isn’t” any good compared to other classical music

John Williams has shockingly confessed he doesn’t like film music very much, and doesn’t think it deserves the same acclaim as classical compositions.

The composer is one of the most celebrated creators of film soundtracks in history, famous for the themes to Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, Jaws, 1978’s Superman, and Star Wars to name just a few. He has won five Oscars, three Emmys, and 26 Grammy awards, and is considered to be a fundamental part of what made some of the biggest movies of all time so beloved.

However, in an interview with Tim Greiving for a forthcoming biography, John Williams: A Composer’s Life (shared by The Guardian), he shared that he doesn’t hold the medium in high regard. “I never liked film music very much,” he said, adding: “Film music, however good it can be – and it usually isn’t, other than maybe an eight-minute stretch here and there … I just think the music isn’t there. That, what we think of as this precious great film music is … we’re remembering it in some kind of nostalgic way”.

Comparing it to classical music, he remarked: “Just the idea that film music has the same place in the concert hall as the best music in the canon is a mistaken notion, I think. A lot of (film music) is ephemeral. It’s certainly fragmentary and, until somebody reconstructs it, it isn’t anything that we can even consider as a concert piece”.

Looking at his own contribution, he was just as critical. “If I had it all to do over again, I would have made a cleaner job of it – of having the film music and the concert music all being more me, whatever that is, or more unified in some way” he said. “But none of it ever happened that way. The film thing was a job to do, or an opportunity to accept”.

Despite this self-criticism, Williams remains admired by a vast array filmmakers and artists, many of whom contributed to last year’s documentary Music By John Williams, a celebration of his career made for Disney +.

Williams’ last work was on 2023’s Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, and despite previous comments that it may be his last work, the 91-year-old revealed last year he isn’t retired. “If a film came along that I was greatly interested in, with a schedule that I could cope with, then I wouldn’t want to rule anything out” he said.

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